Education of Girls.
In naming the persons who were to receive the benefit of education I did not exclude young maidens, and, therefore, seeing I made them one branch of my division, I must now say something more about them. Some may think that the matter might well enough have been passed over in silence, as not belonging to my purpose, seeing that my professional concern is with the education of boys. But seeing that I begin as low as the first elementary training, in which young maidens ordinarily share, how could I seem to take no notice of them? And to prove that they ought to receive education I find four special reasons, any one of which—therefore surely all together—may persuade their greatest adversary, much more then myself, who am for them tooth and nail. The first is the custom of the country, which allows them to learn. The second is the duty we owe to them, charging us in conscience not to leave them deficient. The third is their own aptness to learn, which God would never have bestowed on them to remain idle or to be used to small purpose. The fourth is the excellent results shown in them when they have had the advantage of good upbringing.
I do not advocate sending young maidens to public Grammar Schools, or to the Universities, as this has never been the custom in this country. I would allow them learning within certain limits, having regard to the difference in their vocation, and in the ends which they should seek in study. We see young maidens are taught to read and write, and can learn to do well in both; we hear them both sing and play passing well; we know that they learn the best and finest of our learned languages to the admiration of all men. As to the living modern languages of highest reputation in our time, if any one is inclined to deny that in these they can compare with the best of our sex, they will claim no other tests than to talk with such a one in whichever of these tongues he may choose. These things our country doth stand to; these accomplishments their parents procure for them according to their means and opportunities, in so far as their daughters’ aptitude doth offer hope of their gaining an advantage through them, by being preferred in marriage or some other career. Nay, do we not see in our country some of that sex so excellently well trained, and so rarely qualified in regard both to the tongues themselves and to the subject-matter contained in them, that they may be placed along with, or even above, the most vaunted paragons of Greece or Rome, or the German and French gentlewomen so much praised by recent writers, or the Italian ladies who dare even to write themselves, and deserve fame for so doing?
And what be young maidens in relation to our sex? Do we not, according to nature, choose from among them those who are to be our nearest and most necessary friends, the mothers of our children? Are they not the very creatures that were made for our comfort, the only remedy for our solitude, our closest companions in weal or woe, sharers in all our fortunes until death? And can we in conscience do otherwise than give careful thought to the welfare of those that are linked to us in so many ways? Is it a small thing to have our children’s mothers well strengthened in mind as in body? And is there any better means of strengthening their minds than to teach them that knowledge of God and religion, of civil and domestic duties, which we ourselves gain by education, and ought not to deny to them—that education which is to be found in books, and can be so well acquired in youth?
If Nature has given to young maidens abilities to prove excellent in their kind, and yet thereby in no way to fail in their most laudable duties in marriage, but rather to beautify themselves with admirable ornaments, are we not to be charged with extreme unnaturalness if we do not guide by discipline what is given to them by Nature?
The excellent effects in those women who have been well trained show clearly that they deserve the best training. What better example can be found to assure the world than our most dear sovereign lady and princess, who is so familiarly acquainted with the nine Muses that they strive which may love her best for being the most learned, and for whose excellent knowledge we who taste of the fruit have most cause to rejoice?